The revenue associated with international telecommunications traffic is divided between the originating and terminating telecommunications carriers or PTTs based on a settlement rate, representing the percentage of revenue allocated to the originating carrier or PTT. Some countries impose very high settlement rates to raise revenues for their PTTs. As a consequence, subscribers in such countries incur very high costs for international calls, prompting such subscribers to consider alternative mechanisms to enjoy lower telecommunications charges.
To the extent permitted by local law, many telecommunications subscribers utilize call-back services for their international calls to take advantage of lower settlement charges in the call-back country. For example, the settlement charges for a call originating in certain foreign countries and terminating in the United States may be far higher than a call originating in the United States and terminating in such countries. Thus, a subscriber gains a significant economic advantage by originating the call in the United States. To that end, some telecommunications carriers provide network facilities in low settlement rate countries that will call back a foreign caller upon receipt of an incoming international call from that caller. The foreign caller then enters the number of the called party, whereupon, the carrier in the low settlement rate country launches a second call to the called party. The two calls are the bridged. Because of the lower settlement charges, the "call back" to the foreign caller, and the call launched to the called party collectively cost less that if the caller made the call directly from the foreign country to the called party.
Presently, the call-back service offered by telecommunications carriers suffers from a significant post-dial delay, defined as the interval from dialing the number of the call back service until ringing of the called party. Often, the post dial delay may be as long as 25-30 second, causing some subscribers to believe that they were disconnected, so that the subscribers terminate their calls too early.
Thus, there is a need for a call back method that minimizes any post dial delay.